UV sterilizer

[john C]

i am going to be running a fx5 and a wet/dry on a 300gal pond. what about a UV? the wet/dry is going to be gravity fed so pump is in the pond. flow rate for UV the slower the more efficient correct? so do i use a individual pump for the UV or connect the UV to the wet/dry or fx5? the wet dry is not complete all i have is filter media for it . this is for rays not really sure i believe in the efficiency of it but most ray keepers use it so i"m sure i will too. what type what size etc.

john

 

[pacu mom]

The flow rate through the UV sterilizer has to be fairly slow for the UV sterilizer to be effective. The bigger the UV sterilizer, the faster the flow rate can be. For our 300 gallon tank, we connected our 40 Watt Rainbow Lifegard UV sterilizer to the return line from the FX-5. The FX-5 drives the water through the UV sterilizer and back into the tank. Our UV sterilizer has perform flawlessly for us--in very short order it cleared up our green water problem. (with large picture windows and skylights, our tank is in sunlight all day long). The flowrate of the FX-5 is still less than the maximum recommended flowrate through our 40 Watt UV sterilizer.

Whether you can connect your UV sterilizer directly to your FX-5 will depend on the size of your UV sterilizer. BTW, the 40 Watt Lifegard UV sterilizer is very tall (36"), so cannot be easily housed. It sits on the floor behind our tank, along with the FX-5 and our wet/dry filter. The beauty of the Lifegard is that the bulb does not have to be replaced as frequently as other UV sterilizers.

 

[Aquarium_Fish]

before you buy ... look at Lowes Homes Improvement ... they have some pond 18 watt UV's for $99.00 ...

I grabbed 2 - one is on my 210 powered with a Magnum 350 canister (without a filter).

It's on a timer 10 on / 14 off

 

[TEL]

I had space ontop of my sump where the return pump is and plumbed it so it would get water from the sump and returned it next to the return pump. There are 2 ways to do this the best way is to put a small pump on the oppisite side of the sump to the return pump and the output side of the uv near the return pump eventuerly all the water goes through it and the 2nd way is to put a T pice with a tap on the return pump to control the waterflow going through the uv witch should be just enough to keep the uv full of water. this did a very good job for me and made cleaning the uv a simple job and because it was on the return side of the sump that was not very often.

 

[john C]

thanks for sharing i like the idea of putting a tee on the return TEL i will have to consider that.

 

[Crazy Taco]

the ponds do nothing but make it clear you want something that actually KILLS disease dont go with a pond one.

 

[ercnan]

I've been doing some research, and it seems there are 2 names for the same thing.
Clarifiers and Sterilizers.
Clarifiers seem to be the lower wattage cheaper units to essentially clear green water and other "blooms", while Sterilizers seem to be the higher wattage, substantially more expensive units that actually have the power to kill basically anything that goes through.
For the clarifer, I would think a small diatom filter or micron filter would have the same effect at a lower cost.